Matthew C. Le Merle

Matthew Le Merle is Managing Partner and CEO of Fifth Era & Blockchain Coinvestors.

Fifth Era is a specialized asset manager providing access to exponential technologies that are transforming our world. Our firm believes we are entering a period of unprecedented innovation, which we call the Fifth Era, and every industry and business will be dramatically impacted. We focus on investing in these new innovations, especially private companies focused on the convergence of Internet, AI/Agentic and Blockchain technologies to shape an Autonomous Digital Economy. Our investment strategies construct portfolios of hard-to-access early-stage funds and make concentrated direct investments into emerging category leaders during their mid and late-stage investment phases. Fifth Era's investment strategies are now in their 13th year and to date we have invested in a combined portfolio of 1,500+ companies including 80+ unicorns. In the US we are a SEC registered investment advisor, in the UK a FCA appointed representative and registered in Switzerland.

Matthew’s career has spanned being a global strategy advisor, professional services firm leader, corporate operating executive, private equity and venture capital investor, and board director. His board work has included Chairman or Non-Executive Director roles in 15 public and private companies and active Advisory Board roles in fast growth companies. He is currently a board director or advisor for ApplePie Capital, Bitwise, Esco, HashKey Capital, Qurrent, Securitize and others. Matthew’s board experience includes a broad range of industries including Internet & Computing, Fintech/Blockchain, Business Services, Consumer and Retail.

Earlier in his career, Matthew spent 21 years as a strategy, operations and corporate finance advisor to Fortune 500 CEOs, boards and executive teams with McKinsey & Company, and as a practice leader with A.T. Kearney and Monitor Group where he led both firms’ West Coast practices and at Booz & Company. He was also a corporate executive at Gap Inc. where he was SVP strategy and corporate development and SVP global marketing.

Matthew is a bestselling author (The Intelligent Investor – Silicon Valley, Blockchain Competitive Advantage, Corporate Innovation in the Fifth Era, Build your Fortune in the Fifth Era, The Ministry of Bitcoin and Second Chance) and keynote speaker. He received a B.A. (Double First) and Master’s from Christ Church, Oxford, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He lives and works in San Francisco and London.